What You Need to Know About Disaster Recovery Compute Resources

The purpose of a disaster recovery environment is to protect customers in the event of complete loss of a data center property or complete system failure. When implementing these environments, it is important to look at both data and compute resources, regardless of provider or hosting company. In this post we will discuss compute resources, but you can learn more about data replication options here.

In the event of a true disaster, the customer must decide how long of an outage their business can withstand. The ultimate business decision is:

Am I going to pay to have reserved compute resources available to me very quickly? OR

Can I avoid paying for reserved compute resources, scramble to get systems shipped to my disaster recovery site, and then bring everything back on line?

Assuming the catastrophic loss of a data center, here are some additional points to consider concerning compute resources:

The customers that ANY provider would address first are those that have contracted for a DR plan with compute resources and replication technologies in place.

Once the contracted DR customers are brought back on line, the provider then shifts attention to other customers. For each of these customers, the provider must figure out the hardware requirements, order the correct systems, stand those systems up, and THEN restore those systems from backup tapes or virtual tape library (VTL). In this scenario, the reality is that it could be weeks before the system is fully operational – mainly due to the lead time for equipment from manufacturers, distributors, partners, etc.

Although none of these topics are fun to think about, it is important to take them into consideration when creating a disaster recovery plan. Think of it as life insurance – contracted disaster recovery is a cost-effective life insurance policy that you hope to never use. Contact us today to learn about your “life insurance” options!